


The Thing with Feathers

by elle_nic



Series: The Lives we Had are No More... Carry On, Darling [1]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endemic, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gun mentions, Hopeful Ending, I did my best with the medical terminology but I'm still not an EMT, I have never touched a gun so there may be firearm inaccuracies, Medical Inaccuracies, Minor Character Death, No Major Character Death, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, Similarities to the Covid Pandemic, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24220498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_nic/pseuds/elle_nic
Summary: We do what we must to survive. In the beginning of it all, survival meant cross-country trekking to Cincinnati. For Andy, survival became the comfort found in a woman she never thought she'd see again.
Relationships: Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs
Series: The Lives we Had are No More... Carry On, Darling [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751935
Comments: 37
Kudos: 165





	The Thing with Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iimzadi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimzadi/gifts).



> For Iimi, who bemoans the lack of zombie fics every day of her life. This has been a labour of love, but it's done now. Iimi, you're a pain in the arse but you're MY pain in the arse, and I love you. Iimi, endlessly talented as she is, made a video for this fic before it was even finished. I recommend y'all check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAiqnDKJNZE
> 
> A theme in this fic--that resonates in all our lives now, I think--is hope. Hope never stops. My god, we live on it.
> 
> elle xx

_I._

_A sniffle,_ is what Nate had said to her. _Just a sniffle, Andy._

But Andy didn’t care. She couldn’t really afford to get sick right now; not in the middle of all the news coverage on the endemic hitting the east and west coast of the United States, and moving steadily west and south. She told him she’d crash at a friend from work’s place for a few nights until he got better. It was perfect, she thought. Andy’d be able to work right through the biggest news event since ‘01 and Nate would be able to heal up and not get her sick. Perfect. 

That Monday started with planes on the eastern seaboard being grounded until further notice. Then on Tuesday, several cases of strange side-effects were released about the fierce flu bout. ‘Foxglove flu’ was what it had been unofficially dubbed, for it’s neuraminidase that looked like the flower it was named for. It was deceptively sinister by Andy’s estimation, especially by how viral and fierce it was once contracted. Andy tried to call Nate that night to check in on him, her call going to voicemail after being left unanswered. _Paranoid_ , she chided as she fell asleep. Nate was fine. He only had a sniffle. 

Wednesday came with the release of disturbing statistics and no return call from Nate. 

By Thursday, all hell had broken loose.

_“... statistics show that foxglove flu has a disturbing six percent death rate… consisting of adults in their forties… made up predominantly by men…”_

“What in the world,” Andy whispered for the nth time that day. Her shift wasn’t over yet, but she had remembered Nate at their shared apartment alone, and the myriad of missed calls and unanswered texts and voicemails. She didn’t think to tell anyone where she was going, she simply grabbed her things and left her building, headed for home. When she was on the street, she opened her phone and saw four missed calls from Nate early that morning and swore again.

“Nate,” Andy said, rushing through the city with her gloves and mask on, “I’m on my way home, call me back if you need anything,” she said to his voicemail, voice shaky with worry.

He’d gone to Boston after she left _Runway_ , and they’d made another go of their relationship which was not as successful as they’d thought it would be. He was laid off from his job earlier that year and headed back to New York where he and Andy became more like friends with benefits than the doting couple they’d once been. But Nate was still her friend, one of the people she cared for most in the world. And he was sick and she’d left him alone.

“Goddammit,” she hissed on the subway as she sent a message to her mother to keep her phone on her for when Andy would call later that afternoon. She wanted to get her and Nate out of New York and back to the Midwest for a while, until all this crazy stuff settled down. She didn’t much care for anything more than to be with her parents.

Finally off the subway, Andy ran back to her apartment, breathing heavily through the mask over her nose and mouth. She was sweating into her coat and her feet hurt from the closed, heeled boots she had decided that wear that day. She raced up the three flights of stairs to her apartment door, promising for the hundredth time to fix the knocker.

“Nate,” she called, locking the door behind her and wrinkling her nose at the dishes piled by the sink. Nate was an amazing chef but he was truly lacking in the dishwashing department. “Nate, babe,” she said walking through to the bedroom where she could see him curled up. “Hey,” she whispered, shaking him gently to wake.

But he was cold to the touch. She frowned, felt his forehead and flinched at the lack of heat. Then she realised his unnatural stillness.

“Nate,” she said again, trying to roll him over to her. He was waxy and pale. His eyes were shut. She felt his neck, gagging at the wet, cold sweat there. There was no pulse to account for. “Fuck, no no no,” she cried, leaping for her phone. “Ambulance, please,” she wept. “My friend, he’s not waking up, he’s cold and I- he only had a runny nose the other day but he’s-”

“Okay, ma’am, I need your address.” Andy gave it. “Now, I need you wait by the door for the paramedics to arrive, and then let them in as fast as you can. Understand?”

“Yes, but-”

“Help is on the way,” the gentle voice said, but Andy had hung up. They didn’t tell her to do CPR or to clear Nate’s airways or restart his heart… They didn’t tell her how to save him. 

She was ready to open the door when the EMTs arrived, and watched with wide, teary eyes as they strode in--kits and gloves and masks--and moved straight for Nate’s still body. She watched them prod gently at him, talk with jargon Andy couldn’t begin to follow, then as they announced the time of death. One of them, a tall, sandy-haired man explained to her that Nate had passed away sometime the night before with symptoms alarmingly like the endemic they were currently faced with. 

Andy looked at her phone after they’d left, taking Nate with them, and saw that Nate had tried to call her between two and three that morning. He’d left no voicemails, no texts, just three missed calls, probably as he burned up and choked to his death. Andy covered her mouth and cried quietly for several long minutes, an aching guilt settling it’s claws around her ribs. 

“Mom,” she rasped after her mother answered her phone call.

“Andy? Baby, what’s wrong?”

Andy sniffled, her breath jumping in her chest, not settling as she continued to cry. “Nate died, Momma,” she wept. “He was sick and I stayed with a friend from work and I got back this afternoon and he was in bed.”

“Oh, Andy,” her mother whispered.

“I tried to wake him,” Andy moaned, “but he was cold and he wasn’t breathing… He wasn’t _breathing_ , mom!”

“Andy, you need to take some breaths,” she heard her mother say. She felt as though her head was under water, the sound distorted and unclear. “Andrea,” her mother said firmly. “Breathe with me now.”

With the passing minutes on the phone to her mother, Andy’s breath did calm and regulate, but her tears continued until her eyes stung and she had a headache. She heard her mother explain things to her father, who said a brief hello wherein he reminded Andy he loved her. It calmed her somewhat that her parents hadn’t blamed her for Nate’s death, especially when she felt very certain that it _was_ her fault.

“I was going to bring Nate back to Cincinnati,” Andy says to the beat of her headache. “I don’t know how, yet, but I’m still going to come. If that’s okay.”

“I’m expecting you to make your way as soon as you can,” her mother informed matter-of-factly. “The news has been insane, Andy. They’re saying it’s having all these side-effects. They’ve never seen anything like it at all.”

“I know, mom. I’ve been in the thick of it.” In truth, Andy was tired and still violently devastated. She didn’t want to talk about foxglove anymore.

“I know you have, baby…”

“I’m going to make some calls to some friends, see if they know anyone that can get near Ohio. Planes and trains are a no-go for now,” Andy said, thinking aloud about her options.

“Let me know, okay? Things here are… They’re bad, Andy, but I want you here anyway, okay?”

“Okay. I love you, mom,” Andy said, feeling her eyes sting with tears she no longer had.

“I love you, too. Keep me updated.”

After they hung up, Andy called around, checking with friends if they knew any way to leave New York. Roxanne from the sports section at the paper knew a friend that was headed to Pittsburgh the next morning, and would Andy like her to check if Roxanne had room in her car? The answer was, obviously, yes. Pittsburgh was only six hours by car, and though it wasn’t anywhere near Cincinnati, it was closer by leaps and bounds than New York.

Looking at the time and seeing her digital clock blink a tired 6:12pm, Andy decided she’d need to stock up if she was going to potentially be cross-country hiking to get back to Ohio. She lifted herself from her sofa, cringed away her tiredness, and nervously walked into the bedroom where Nate had been not even an hour before. The bedsheets were still rumpled and his pillow still hosted the indentation where his head had laid. 

She moved to her closet, and reaching up to the shelf above her clothes, selected a hiking backpack that she’d gotten in college. It was roomy and designed in a way that it would carry a sizeable weight without putting too much strain on her shoulders and back. She grabbed her wallet and her keys and, without looking to the bed, made her way out of the apartment and to the 24 hour store on the corner of her block.

The store was mostly empty. That is, empty of people _and_ food alike. There was little in the way of fresh or even snack goods. But, Andy realised with disdain for people’s lack of commonsense, there was plenty of canned and dried goods. So, being a former girl scout, she grabbed all she could of the canned tuna and sardines. All the dried apples and apricots, and the packets of nuts. She grabbed two lighters, a cannister of lighter fluid and some fuel tablets. The clerk, a nervous looking older man, frowned at the array of items but Andy said nothing to him. She paid, put her things in her backpack, and returned home.

At her apartment she selected several practical pairs of trousers and just as many t-shirts. She grabbed the only two sports bras she owned and placed them onto the pile in her living room that she was amassing. Just as she settled to the floor to begin rolling the garments did her phone chime an incoming message with Roxanne’s name flashing up at her.

_Andy, Maya, my friend, said she’d be happy to take you to Pittsburgh. I’ll send you her number so you can text her your address._

Andy texted the number after thanking Roxanne and made arrangements with Maya for early the next morning. Andy kept her radio on as she rolled her clothes and configured the backpack to be as space efficient as possible. Her mother called again that night, making sure Andy was alright and asking after the plans she might have made. 

“I’m catching a ride to Pittsburgh,” Andy said, rolling a t-shirt and placing it in her pack. “From there I’m going to hitchhike,” she informed her mother. 

“No,” her mother said. “That’s not safe at all. We’ll come get you.”

“Mom,” Andy said as gently as she could, “Cincinnati is on lockdown, basically, and New York is about to shut down. You won’t be able to drive to Pennsylvania to get me, or even Columbus, and I can’t wait too long here or I’ll be locked in. You just let me handle getting to you, okay?”

“Andy, this- this _illness_ is spreading around the Americas and even select other countries! You can’t just _walk_ here!”

“I can, and seeing as it’s my only option, I will. I have a portable charger so I’ll be able to call you, god willing. Everything will be fine.”

Her mother seemed to just breathe on the phone to her for some moments. Andy continued packing her backpack, heedless of the growing hour and the early start she had ahead of her. 

“How will you even know how to walk here?”

“Girl scout, mom. I have a map and a one person tent that will fit in my backpack. I have a fire kit so the nights aren’t too chilly, and,” Andy said, pausing for effect so her point was driven home. “I have that glock 19 that dad made me swear to get. I’ll be safe and I’ve always been smart.”

“Well,” her mother said, and Andy could plainly hear the anxiety in that single syllable. “You’re to text me in the morning and evening every day, okay? Even when I don’t respond. God knows, I’m useless with figuring it out.” 

“I will.”

“Call me when you get to Pittsburgh.”

“I will. I _love_ you, mom.”

“I love you, too, honey. Bye for now.”

“Bye for now.”

It was nearly two in the morning when Andy had packed her backpack of absolutely everything she could think to take. It was a nerve wracking thing, she realised as she was falling asleep on the couch, to face the reality that she may not return to her home for quite some time. All of the little things she had that made her space hers, and she probably would not see them in any near future. The photos she had of her family and friends and Nate and New York, strung up about her walls and surfaces.

She had the incredible awareness that the whole world--or hers at the very least--was about to change in a very significant way. She fell to sleep that night carrying her grief and her guilt; grief for Nate and guilt that she knew more than everyone else did, would get out of New York before others. To know and to act on knowledge that not everyone had yet felt wrong. She supposed it should have been a relief that she hadn’t lost her integrity as a journalist. 

The next morning dawned faster than she wanted it to. Eyes stinging from crying and not enough sleep, she organised her few belongings and ate a strange breakfast of pickled onions and what little peanut butter she had left in a jar. She unplugged her fridge, her landline and her television, then grabbed her map to double-check her plans. Maya texted her saying she was downstairs, and though Andy was anxious--incredibly so--she stopped at her door and took another look at her home. Still decorated and appearing lived-in, it felt like abandonment.

She closed and locked the door and walked down the stairwell, blinking to adjust to the darkness and moving toward the idling Honda in front of her building.

“Hey, Andy?”

“That’s me,” Andy said through the undone window. She put her backpack in the backseat next to a few boxes and slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. Maya, an older Asian woman, waited for her to be settled then pulled out into the scarce traffic and began driving, both of them sharing in sparse conversation about their families and “Isn’t it crazy right now?” 

They were in Allentown refuelling when Andy caught the radio news bulletin. It was a national emergency, everyone was to stay inside as of midnight that night. There was nothing for it, the news presenter explained. Foxglove flu was not a strain of covid or influenza. It targeted the immune system and then almost instantly began to decay specific areas of the brain. It was why scientists were so confused, the bulletin explained. Foxglove flu didn’t target all matter, just cerebral matter and rods and cones in the eye. It was making those affected violent and unstable. And blind, of all things.

“What’d I miss,” Maya said, shutting the door behind her and offering Andy a bag of chips. When Andy didn’t grab the snack, Maya turned and saw Andy’s pallor. “Andy?”

_II._

The rest of the ride had been anxious in a way Andy had never experienced before in her life. She had been anxious plenty in her 27 years; anxious to be liked in middle school, anxious to do well in high school, anxious to get her newspaper out on time every time in college. God knew she’d been anxious at _Runway_ , and even at _The Mirror_. But nothing quite described the dread pooling in her temples then trickling down her spine to her gut. She felt like she was filled with cement; heavy. 

Four and a half hours was filled with radio, silence and Andy planning her cross-country hike in more detail. Then, finally, Pittsburgh was on the horizon. Maya had asked her where she’d like to be dropped off, happy to take her anywhere. Andy had to think about it for some time. The only answer she could think to give was “as far west as you’re willing to go”, but she settled for Green Tree, which she had been to once on a summer trip. It was close enough to the I-70 but not too far from Pittsburgh proper to put Maya out.

Andy double-checked her map and was satisfied that she would be about two hours ahead of her scheduled hike. She would try to remain ahead of her plans as best as she could over the next week or so of walking. Her aim was to hitchhike, maybe, but if everyone stuck to the mandatory quarantine then there might not be much of an opportunity to catch a ride. 

“What are you going to do about staying inside?” Maya asked as they entered Pittsburgh. Andy shrugged.

“I’ll just have to lay low, I guess. If they arrest me then they’ll fine me and chances are I’ll be able to get a ride to my parent’s place anyway. I’m really just… I’m really just winging it,” Andy finished, chest too tight with stress to talk more. 

“I’m sorry, Andy,” Maya said. Andy waved her off, lacking the energy to allay the older woman’s fears. Maya must have understood, because she didn’t say anything else, didn’t try to apologise again or offer sympathies. The news bulletins only got worse, mass cases of untreated foxglove flu victims that hadn’t gone to a hospital, but had stayed home to recover. There were even a few cases in Europe, namely France and Spain and three cases in South Korea. America seemed to be the only country with such a large scale infection rate. It was terrifying. 

Andy waved to the back of Maya’s car as she drove off toward Pittsburgh. Andy assumed that the older woman would be the last solid form of interaction with another person before she got to her parents’ house. She hoped beyond hope that she was wrong, but something about beginning to walk toward Cincinnati made her feel a little helpless. 

“One foot in front of the other,” Andy reminded herself as the hours passed. 

She walked until the sun set, moving along the Panhandle Trail from Green Tree and then settling for the night in Midway. Six hours of walking had tired her, but she knew after another day or two of full days of walking that she’d get used to it. A childhood of hiking and semi-regular camping made the ordeal much easier on Andy’s body and mind. She was grateful to her father for this, for instilling in her a deep sense of connectedness with nature. It had certainly come in handy.

And so the days went, walking along trails to avoid being picked up or attracting unwanted notice or walking along highways in order to reacquaint herself with her location. She texted her mother once in the morning, letting her know she was beginning another day, and again at night once she had settled in her small tent. She would only get a response to one or the other of the messages, but her mother had always been less adept at texting. 

On her third day of walking, Andy passed through a small town off route 22 that seemed normal despite the worsening statistics of foxglove. Cadiz seemed untouched in a surreal way by the hysteria that Andy had been trying not to listen to too much on her radio. She was unnerved by the calmness and decided not to linger too long in the sleepy town. 

Walking to the market off Main Street, Andy restocked as best as she could on protein bars and nuts and dried fruit. She decided to grab another gallon of water, mourning the strain it would bring on her tired shoulder and stiff back. Sleeping on practically the ground had been more than uncomfortable, and the only comfort Andy could think of was that this would all be temporary. 

She stopped at a small Chinese restaurant and grabbed something for lunch, treating herself to the calorie dense meal. It was the most delicious thing she’d eaten in ages and whether she thought this because of the gloom or the dread didn’t matter to her. She ate her noodles and orange chicken with relish, sighing in satisfaction when she was finished. Looking at her map as she ate, Andy saw that it was another five hours until she’d get to her next predestined resting point. She used the restroom at the restaurant then left.

_Settling for the night in Piedmont. Another ten hours or so of walking tomorrow and I’ll be at Cambridge. Practically a stroll from there until I can get to you and dad. -A_

Without waiting for a response, Andy settled to sleep, exhausted from her days of walking and fretting. The floor of her tent was thin, and the nights were growing more and more chilly, but with the determination that her parents had instilled in her, she went to sleep.

When she awoke to the sounds of radio, she realised she was freezing.

“Shit,” she hissed, moving her backpack from where she’d been resting her head and searching through it for her thermal sweater she’d nearly not brought with her. She was glad she did now. 

_Things are getting crazy. Glad you’re safe. -Mom_

She was nearly in Cambridge when she decided to tune into the radio bulletin again. She listened as she walked, heart sinking with every step she took. Hysteria was the word they’d used, she noted numbly. All of America was in a mass hysteria, for good reason, Andy thought dryly. It was something from a dystopian novel she might’ve read in high school. People becoming frothing, mindless animals and attacking all they could.

_“... remember they are blind. Civilians are being urged to remain in doors and as silent as possible. Larger cities across the country are being locked down completely, no one in or out. Military corps have begun to be involved… stay safe… stay quiet…”_

Andy cried herself to sleep.

Departing from the edge of a copse of trees near Zanesville, Andy sighed in relief. She was close now, only a few more days of walking, even with the detour she’d need to make near Columbus for more supplies. She could be home in as few as four days, and it was that thought that motivated her to continue taking step after step. Even as she rested that evening after texting her mother, Andy felt awash with hope. Hope to be home where she could begin to figure everything out with her parents. 

Hebron was about ten hours away from Columbus. Only ten hours until Andy could restock her supplies or perhaps find someone willing to take her to Cincinnati. She’d heard less and less on the radio as she walked, the signal being too far out or the radio station simply playing hold music. Andy, not having had any run-ins with people after Cadiz, hoped that she’d make steady progress through the arguably large city. She’d stick to the outskirts, she decided, to avoid as much exposure as possible. It would be the end if she was reckless about remaining distanced from hotspots. 

Walking along the highway but not on, Andy was confident that she’d be able to get home without making any contact with people. She would see what she could do about supplies, but if she couldn’t get anything--and her chances were slim that she would--then she could make it home on the food and water she had purchased recently.

“What the hell,” she said to herself, slowing her walk and squinting at the distance. There seemed to be a backup of cars on the highway, which was unusual and the first case of that she’d seen so far. She continued to walk, zigzagging through some of them when she was close enough. What was stranger, though, was the crowd further down and around more backed up cars, stumbling about without aim or direction. 

Andy’s heart thumped painfully. 

She’d listened to the tips on the radio and knew that the strange movements she was witnessing were indications of the infected. She stilled in the field she was walking through and came to a steady halt. There was no cover where she was, farmland all around and only one way to get closer to Columbus. She began to backtrack. Heading back to Hebron would be preferable to trying to find a way around the large group of infecteds. 

She stumbled backwards and right into a BMW. A, now, wailing BMW.

She took off like a shot, hearing the grumbling and stumbling of the infected several tens of feet behind her. Her heart raced but she raced faster, weaving through traffic in a way she’d never had to before. She grabbed her handgun from her cargo pants pocket, slowing slightly to get a good grip on the weapon; her last resort should she need it. Still she ran, and still she heard them follow.

“No,” she gasped, over and over, adrenaline and fear warring but both enhancing her senses. She would wonder later if it was her fear or her adrenaline that allowed her to hear the vehicle approaching. It was big, she could tell, the rumble of the engine louder than any car she’d heard in New York. She risked a peek behind her and saw a black SUV driving in her direction on the left side of the road, avoiding all the inbound cars blocked up around her. 

She tried to call attention to herself by waving her arms, but stopped once she realised it interrupted her sprint too much. She could have cried when the car continued right past her, not showing any signs of stopping, least of all for her. But then, miracle of miracles, the car screeched to a halt about thirty yards ahead of her. The rear door of the car opened, held open by a young man, his face panicked.

“Run!” he shouted, and if her life wasn’t hanging in the balance, she might’ve asked him what he thought she was already doing. Instead, however, she did as he said and sprinted right up to the door, swinging her backpack off one shoulder and all but leaping into the car and to veritable safety. She pulled the door shut and the instant to door slammed, they were speeding off again.

“Holy shit,” she panted, looking out the tinted window of the large luxury car to see how close to catching up to her the infected were. She’d never have survived if not for whoever had picked her up. 

“Did they touch you?” came the urgent voice of the young man beside her in the back seat. She shook her head, breathing rapidly still and trying to tell herself that she was no longer in a life or death situation. 

“What the fuck were you even doing out there?” came the rough voice of the man behind the steering wheel. Andy could see a shaggy, red beard and thick arms, a thicker jaw and an aura of unwavering stoicism.

“I-” she gasped uselessly. She leaned forward, bracing her arms on her legs and closing her eyes. “I’m trying to get home,” she said finally.

“Where’s home?” the driver asked.

“Cincinnati.”

“What’s in Cincinnati?”

“My parents. I… I walked from Pittsburgh,” she said, managing her breathing a little easier now.

“Christ,” the driver said. “How long you been walkin’?”

“A week, I think,” Andy said, sitting up and looking to the wide eyes of the man next to her. “I’m Andy,” she said.

“I’m Hamish,” the young man said, then jerked his head to the driver seat in front of him. “That’s Caleb,” he said. Then, “And that’s Miranda.” 

Andy’s head, probably a leftover instinct from working at _Runway_ , snapped forward. She did then spy the few strands of a white coiffure sticking up over the passenger seat that she hadn’t noticed. Andy held her breath, thinking about how common white hair was and how common the name Miranda was and how common white-haired women named Miranda were. 

“Hello, Andréa.”

Andy should’ve known. Miranda Priestly, white hair and all, was one of a fucking kind. 

_III._

The drive continued to be mostly silent, the odd question from Hamish, the odd grunt from Caleb and the consuming silence from Miranda. Hamish had asked if they knew each other, but neither had answered, unsure what to even say to that question. The technical answer was yes, but the other technical answer was no, and neither woman could be bothered with explaining the difference.

“Wait,” Andy said, sitting up from the cush seats of the car, “Where are we going?” she asked, eyes trained on a sign they passed, not seeing Cincinnati on any of the destinations. “We’re headed south?”

“We’re headed back to our base,” Caleb said roughly. “Car is low on fuel and we have supplies that are needed back home.”

“But,” Andy said, trying to wrap her head around that nugget of information. “I need to go to Cincinnati.”

“You can still catch a ride there, but it’ll be on the next scavenge,” Hamish said helpfully. 

“When is that?”

“In about four weeks, I think,” he replied, less helpfully.

“I can’t wait that long,” Andy stressed. “My parents, they’re expecting me in a few days,” she pleaded. Caleb looked from the road to the odometre and back to the road. He said nothing. “Can you let me out?”

“Let me-” Caleb began, but was interrupted.

“Keep driving,” came the uninterested voice. Miranda’s voice.

Andy expected Caleb to pull over or to tell her she wasn’t in charge. She got that vibe from the brutish seeming man, but he did no such thing. He did, in fact, continue driving. 

“Miranda,” Andy started, feeling her ire rise, “I need to get out of this car. It’ll already take me another day to walk as far as we’ve gone and-”

“You will not,” Miranda said firmly, “be getting out of this car to traipse to your hometown in the middle of this young adult, dystopian _nightmare_.”

“It’s not your decision to make,” Andy said heatedly. Miranda said nothing, but Andy saw her turn her head and look at Caleb, who had been resolutely staring at the road.

“Are you going to pull over, Caleb?” Miranda asked the man. Caleb glanced to Miranda, then to Andy in the rearview mirror. 

“Sorry, kid.”

Andy leaned back into her seat in shock. Hamish leaned closer to her.

“It’ll be safer if you wait for the next scavenge,” he said.

Andy said nothing in response.

“What are we doing?” Andy asked as they pulled off the forest road and onto a steading with several large sheds. Hamish got out of the car as they slowed near the smaller of the four sheds. Opening up the shed, Hamish guided Caleb inside where half a dozen tanks resided and a long workbench stacked with portable fuel tanks. Still without answers, Andy followed the rest out of the car and into the dark shed. 

“Hamish,” Caleb grunted.

“On it!”

Seconds later, large utility lights flickered on, illuminating the area. It was indeed full of petrol tanks, the smell a dead giveaway. More surprising than seeing so much gas that wasn’t in a gas stop was seeing Miranda in a t-shirt, plain jacket and cargo pants. She was wearing combat boots. Andy had never thought to imagine the woman in anything but couture and designer clothes. Of course, Andy didn’t expect her to be wearing towering Prada heels, but it was a shock to her system regardless.

“We’re unloading the car,” Caleb said in answer to her earlier question. “We unload here, about a mile out from town so the noise doesn’t attract any of the plagued.”

“Infected,” Hamish corrected, opening the trunk of the car and gathering two backpacks. Caleb grunted, in annoyance or apology, Andy couldn’t tell. 

“Get it together,” the tall man said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

Andy grabbed her backpack and another smaller bag from the trunk of the car, a Mercedes-Benz, she noticed. She ignored the desire to watch Miranda, who she had thought about with dwindling frequency since she left _Runway_. She was glad to see that she was alright in all this, even if she was irritated beyond words at the audacity of the woman to dictate her actions. She made sure to walk ahead of her ex-boss with Hamish, who carried the two backpacks like they weighed nothing. 

“So, what did you do before?” Hamish asked. He didn’t need to specify that he meant before America fell into national emergency slash disaster. 

“I was a journalist in New York,” she said. It felt nice to talk to a person again, especially in her state of isolation from people in the last week. Hamish perked up at her answer.

“No way,” he said, looking like a young boy rather than a man of around twenty years, as Andy suspected he was. “I wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid,” he said wistfully. “I read the _Superman_ comics all the time and wanted to be like Clark Kent.”

“You’ve got his strength,” Andy remarked, nodding to the several bags he was carrying. “And it’s…” she trailed. She was going to reassure him, as was her instinct with most people. She’d almost said it was never too late to chase his dreams, but, she realised, she couldn’t say it with any certainty. America was the stage of some sci-fi dystopia and didn’t seem to be getting better. Andy knew it would get much, much worse before it improved. Who knew if life would return to normality in their lifetime at all? 

“You okay?” 

Andy looked to Hamish’s worried eyes.

“Tired,” she said, and on they walked. 

Stockport was smaller than Andy had assumed it would have been, but the whole township was enclosed by a tall, wire fence. She could see the beginnings of an even taller wooden barrier, too. She wondered if she was stepping into one of those towns that had been preparing for an apocalypse since the seventies. She counted herself lucky, considering the circumstances.

“We’ll need to see Carla before we can just wander around,” Caleb rumbled as they approached the perimeter of the base and pulling out a walkie-talkie. He spoke briefly into that then waited for whatever was coming next. A black woman, older and serious-appearing, walked up to them until a few feet remained.

“She’s new?” the woman asked. Caleb nodded. “You know what has to happen, Caleb,” the woman chided. “Quarantine for you four for three days, no less. You can have two of the farmsteads, take B and D. And take those supplies. There should be enough to tide you over. If not, comm for more and we’ll leave some out by y’all. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caleb said for them. Carla took one last look at Andy, nodded once, then walked back into the town proper. “Christ,” Caleb cursed, grabbing the bag he had placed at his feet and turning to walk in the direction they’d come from. Andy followed behind Miranda and the older man, her and Hamish strolling after the older adults. 

“Quarantine is a new thing Carla decided to do about a week ago,” Hamish supplied, killing the silence. “She heard about how the virus, or whatever it technically is, infected you within thirty-six hours and decided we needed a way to section off people who had been too close to the infected to be in town immediately after.”

“That’s smart,” Andy commented.

“It is. Carla is the unofficial mayor after our old one, Peter Chuck ran off with his family. Haven’t heard from any of ‘em since. I hope they’re okay...” he trailed off. 

“Ladies have B, Hamish and I have D,” Caleb said gruffly when they made it to two mobile homes. One was larger, only slightly, than the other and had a large orange D spray painted onto the white siding. 

“You’re a gracious man,” Miranda said unexpectedly. Caleb made a noise, what Andy assumed was a hum but sounded more like a smothered chainsaw, and moved toward mobile home B. Hamish followed after him, waving to Andy and mentioning something about rationing the food for them. Andy waved him off then turned to where Miranda was standing to find her gone. The door to the mobile home was open, so she headed inside, heedless of what was to come. 

The first few hours, after Hamish had left several cans of food and some fruit at the door, passed without event for Andy and Miranda. There were two bedrooms, to Andy’s neverending relief, and a fully functioning shower with hot water. Andy had nearly moaned at the sensation of the water running through her scalp and down her back. She had done her best to maintain her hygiene, brushing her teeth dry and applying deodorant when she could, but nothing beat an actual shower with real soap.

She dressed in her last clean clothes then moved to the small laundry attached to the bathroom to put on a cycle of her garments. It was to the gentle humming of the washing machine spinning that Andy browsed the lone shelf of books for something to read, finding a copy of a Jane Austen book she hadn’t read and settling in one of the armchairs. 

It was after the sun had set that Andy heard Miranda shuffling around in the bags that Hamish had brought over. In the light of the lamp beside her, Andy ignored the sounds and continued to read about whatever triviality was going on in her book.

“Are you hungry?”

Andy looked up to see Miranda Priestly stood in a white shirt, cargo pants, combat boots and a tin opener in her hand. 

“Not at the moment,” she said, turning back to her page. “Thank you,” she added politely. 

“Suit yourself,” was the unbothered response. She didn’t see Miranda again that night, the older woman keeping to her room. Eventually, Andy shut off the lamp and moved to the kitchen, dimly lit by the stove light, and grabbed an apple, biting into it with relish, delighting in the crunch and the freshness she had not tasted in several days. 

She brushed her teeth with a wet toothbrush and rinsed her mouth with water, finding an inordinate amount of joy in the simple luxury of it all. She placed her clothes on the small clotheshorse to dry and settled into bed with her grief and worry under a comforter, and fell straight into sleep. 

Andy first thought when she woke was that Nate was testing a new recipe with every piece of kitchenware they had. By the fourth loud _clang_ , Andy realised that it wasn’t-- _couldn’t_ \--be Nate, and instead had to be Miranda. The clock on the single bedside table in Andy’s small room informed her that it was just past ten in the morning. Andy’d made plans--tentative ones, but plans all the same--to sleep all day. Of course Miranda would foil it before it could come to fruition. 

Rolling out of bed and stretching, Andy winced at how stiff her muscles were. Her calves and glutes hurt from sprinting as hard as she had the day before, and her back ached from the week of sleeping on what was practically the ground. She wondered if there was a bath anywhere in the small mobile home, and if there was, she would definitely be having a bath to soothe her muscles. 

“What are you _doing_?” Andy groused from the doorway of the living room. The open plan of the home made it simple enough for Miranda to turn and glare at her, even as she was in another room altogether. 

“I know it must be hard to work out,” Miranda condescended, “But I’m attempting to reorganise the kitchenware.”

“And you couldn’t do it at, like, not ten in the morning?”

“Not all of us are accustomed to sleeping the day away. I’m sure you can imagine,” Miranda said, turning away and going back to clanging and banging everything in her sight. 

“I think walking a hundred and eighty miles in a week allows for a lie in,” Andy said, turning and heading back to her room, grabbing her book from the side table after a second thought. 

She had read thirty pages before the noise in the kitchen eventually stopped, but on she read, through midday and into the early afternoon. She ate one of her protein bars, one of the ones she had leftover, and didn’t dare to leave her room. It was small but cosy with a king single bed, a dresser and a chair in the corner of the room that housed Andy’s large backpack. She tried to call her mother, but her signal was non-existent. Before she could panic, she resolved to use one of the phones in town when her isolation was over. It was due to the window in her room that Andy realised that evening had settled around her. Shortly after, a knock at her door. 

“Are you ever going to eat?”

Andy rolled her eyes and turned her page.

“Eventually,” she said. There was no response. 

She showered that night and washed her hair again, sighing in guilt. Her parents would definitely be worried now having received no word from her in a day and a half. She got lost in her thoughts of whether they were alright, or if they’d do something stupid like try to look for her. She hoped they stayed at home, hoped she could get to them by the end of the week…

“Hot water is finite, Andréa,” Miranda said through the door. Andy apologised and switched off the water, towelling dry and getting dressed in her freshly washed clothes. When she was sure Miranda was in the shower, Andy ventured to the kitchen where a small fridge, gas stove and sink were crammed into a corner. She searched the fridge and was unsurprised to find several tins of vegetables and beans and an assortment of canned meats. What she didn’t expect was to see a plate covered in foil with her name on it. 

Pulling it out and uncovering the plate, Andy was frustratingly touched to see a simple pasta dish. It looked like it had been made with whatever tinned things they had, which was definitely the case. But that Miranda had made enough for her and left it for her overwhelmed her. Thinking of times when Nate would make her breakfast and watch her reaction, adjusting the dish based on her feedback, Andy couldn’t help herself. 

She began to cry.

It felt like it had been a long time coming, even after she cried herself dry when she found Nate, but she didn’t expect it to be set off by Miranda of all people. So there she stood in the middle of a tiny kitchen crying over a ugly little pasta dish and a hundred other things too. Her fear and worry and relief. Relief to be alive, that she was safe and, in a way that was becoming more obvious, that Miranda was also alive and safe. 

“Well, you don’t have to eat it, by any means,” Miranda said. Andy looked up, startled, to Miranda’s upturned mouth and concerned eyes. The duality of the expression created an endearing grimace that Andy had never expected Miranda could make. She choked on a laugh, wiping her tears away and covering her face, pulling herself together.

“It’s not that at all,” Andy said through a hiccough. “Thank you for the food.”

“It won’t earn a michelin star but it will do,” Miranda said. “Use a pan to warm it.”

“Can’t be bothered,” Andy said, searching a drawer for a fork and digging in with gusto. It was pretty good, the spiral pasta al dente and the tuna and the sun dried tomatoes making for a surprisingly good combination. 

Miranda sniffed at her, then moved to the bookcase, selecting an old magazine and settling on the sofa to read it. Andy finished her food quickly, mourning that there wasn’t more but feeling satisfied even still. She washed her plate, dried it, then placed it in the cupboard she’d seen other plates in when Miranda was doing her thing that morning. 

She walked past Miranda and into her room.

Sleeping that night was less than successful, and by two that morning, Andy had given up completely. She’d finished her book and in an attempt to go search for another one, she happened upon Miranda, curled up on the sofa, several magazines strewn around her, red pen in hand. She was asleep. Upon further inspection, Andy realised that Miranda was editing the old issues of various publications. 

It was an important moment for her, she would acknowledge later in her life, that she realised that Miranda Priestly, Editor in Chief of _Runway_ , was mourning her old life. Mourning at all hours of the night, falling asleep as she grieved and likely waking in the evidence of her heartache. Andy’s heart panged in sympathy, in _empathy_ , because she knew what the older woman was like, how her life used to look. She missed her life, too. 

Andy gathered the magazines on the couch and kept their pages while placing them on the small coffee table, stacked in the same way they might’ve been if they were on Miranda’s desk at work. She fanned them out as she’d done a hundred times in her old, old life, then gently woke the lightly breathing woman. 

“Miranda,” she whispered. “Miranda.”

“Hmm?” the woman hummed, blinking blearily up at Andy. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Andy was quick to answer. “You’ll get a crick in your neck if you sleep here.”

Miranda sat up a little and rotated her head, frowning when she moved it a certain way. She nodded at Andy, then went very still, staring at the magazines on the table.

“I saved the pages,” Andy said. “I won’t move them. You can get back to it in the morning.” Miranda looked back at Andy and nodded blankly, standing from the sofa and disappearing into the opposite end of the mobile home and behind a door. Suddenly exhausted, Andy returned to her room to toss and turn before, finally, falling asleep. 

They ate breakfast together the next day. Carla’d had a dozen eggs delivered to them which Andy cooked for her and Miranda. There was some fruit as well, a few apples and oranges and two pears. Andy cut them up and made a fruit salad for them to snack on during the day. They didn’t really speak to each other, neither really interested in sharing conversation. It was fine with Andy, though she missed talking to Hamish, if purely for the simplicity of communicating with a real person.

“Is there a bath?”

“There’s one in my ensuite.”

“Cool… Can I use it?”

“Use it now if you must,” Miranda said, waving a hand at her. It was exactly the same as when she used to do it when Andy worked for her.

She soaked in the tub for nearly an hour but decided not to push her luck with Miranda, choosing to get out and read another book. She opened the door to Miranda’s bedroom, dressed only in her towel, her hair in a bun atop her head.

“Oh,” she heard. Miranda was at her dresser, looking through a drawer when Andy had walked out of the still steaming bathroom. “I didn’t hear the water…”

Andy said nothing, both of them looking at the other in a crude imitation of a Mexican standoff. Miranda’s eyes left her and trailed over her bare neck and shoulders and down to her legs which were largely uncovered. The ascent was slower, blue eyes dragging emphatically slow. Andy swallowed as Miranda continued to ogle her.

“My eyes are up here, Miranda,” Andy said quietly, her bravery abandoning her in that moment.

“I know,” Miranda said. “Oh,” the woman said again, as Andy’s flesh blushed from her chest to her ears. “Lovely.”

And then Miranda was approaching her slowly, stopping for nothing but perhaps a sign from Andy. Andy gave no sign, and Miranda continued closer until they were less than a foot apart. Andy, slightly taller, held her breath as she looked at the other woman. Miranda was beautiful, and no one could deny that, especially not Andy who had realised her bisexuality around the time she began working at _Runway_. 

The first kiss was impersonal. It was like every other kiss Andy’d ever had, if not softer. The slow progression of Miranda using her tongue and anchoring her fingers in Andy’s hair was surreal and dreamlike in its inconceivability. This tenderness was never something Andy would have expected from Miranda, not in the few fantasies she’d had of the older woman when they worked together or in the years since she quit. The tenderness, though, didn’t last very long.

Andy’s towel was discarded, her bun dismantled and her hands full of Miranda’s arse. Being on her back for the slightly aggressive woman was a bit like therapy. She didn’t have to think, didn’t have to try to consider all the outcomes of a situation. All she had to do was pant and moan as Miranda used her tongue and teeth and hands.

“Lovely, lovely, lovely,” the woman would breathe into her skin. The gentle words were completely incongruous with the harsh treatment everywhere else, but as Andy came once, then twice, she found she couldn’t complain, especially as it was… effective enough. 

Andy was fast to reciprocate, bringing Miranda to her own release after barely a few minutes of attention. Through gritted teeth, the other woman groaned then flopped backwards on her bed, panting for breath. Andy rolled at the foot of the bed and stared up at the ceiling and it’s few mould stains. She lay, boneless and brainless, for several long minutes, only coming back into her body as Miranda stood and walked into her bathroom without a word. 

Andy rolled off the bed, grabbed her towel and hid in her room. 

_IV._

_Carla said before sunset is when we’ll be able to head back into town. See you then! -Hamish_

Andy breathed deeply at the note. The mobile home was big enough for two people easily, but it had somehow become smaller after Andy and Miranda had slept together the night before. The quickie they’d had on the sofa early that morning hadn’t helped either, Andy thought. But no matter. Soon she’d be in a township with dozens of other people to talk to, and plenty of things to use to avoid Miranda completely.

Just a few more hours.

“What’s that?”

Andy put the note on the table for Miranda to read then moved to her room to repack in preparation (read: to avoid Miranda). Miranda hadn’t looked at her unless she had to at all that day. She could count the times they had made eye contact and it was the same number as times she’d come on Miranda’s fingers. 

In her head, as Miranda had approached her on the sofa, as she’d whispered in her ear how beautiful she was and bitten her earlobe and used three fingers, as she’d come down from her first and second orgasm, Andy could hear Nate’s voice clear as day. Could smell New York and hear her ridiculous fucking ringtone interrupting everything as it always had.

_I hope you two are very happy together._

“Ha, what a joke,” Andy said, packing the last of her loose belongings into her large backpack. She wondered—if only to distract herself from Miranda—where she’d be staying within Stockport’s township. Was there a rental process? She hoped not, considering she didn’t have many savings, and nearly all her cash had gone to buying the food and water she’d managed to buy along her journey. Maybe she could trade labour for lodgings? She’d have to see, she supposed. 

Miranda was waiting at the door when Andy had collected her things, both of them standing outside on the small porch silently. Hamish was blessedly swift in appearing and greeting them both then launching into a story about how he and Caleb had made a chessboard in their isolation. He invited Andy to a game sometime, to which she agreed. She couldn’t really play chess at all but she liked Hamish, liked that he liked her and wanted to be around her. 

Andy hadn’t experienced much of that with the same earnestness that Hamish aimed at her. Her life, now that she thought about it, was lacking in genuine friends that she wasn’t sleeping with, like Nate. She missed it anyhow, more so with every day that passed. The monotony of her life, the routine and the familiarity, of which she had next to none. The only thing recognisable about her recent life was Miranda, but that was neither comfortable nor relieving in the slightest.

Carla was stood at the gate to the town when they made it to the perimeter. Caleb and Miranda walked more sedately behind Hamish and Andy, as they had when they first arrived. Carla was still stern looking, appraising them all for any signs of fever or erratic behaviour. They must have passed the test, because that iron brow of Carla’s melted away to simple indifference paired with relief.

“Well?” Carla intoned when they stood before her.

“All good,” Caleb said, both he and Carla turning to Miranda. The woman in question widened her eyes coyly in a way that made Andy want to roll her eyes.

“Perfectly fine,” Miranda said, as though it were obvious. Carla hummed and invited them in.

“New girl,” Carla said, “What’s your story in three sentences or less.” Lightning fast, Andy replied.

“Andy from New York hiking to Cincinnati but was picked up by Caleb and the rest. I can work no problem,” she added, “but I can’t stay.” 

Miranda scoffed.

“She’ll house with me until there’s somewhere else available. I’m sure Dianne won’t mind,” Miranda said. Carla looked firmly to Miranda but didn’t chide her. Andy had a feeling that Carla pitied Miranda, who was so used to making decisions for people. It was satisfying, Andy thought, to see Miranda flounder with being a follower for a change.

“Will she just? You seem to have it all worked out,” Carla remarked. Miranda waved a hand.

“We knew each other prior to all this mess. It’s a matter of convenience,” Miranda said, looking at Andy. Andy didn’t look at her, resolutely staring at Carla.

“Well, whatever,” the woman in charge said. “Caleb, I need you and Hamish to meet with me this evening after dinner to debrief. Miranda, you do whatever it is you do when you’re off shift. Andy, I’ll meet with you tomorrow to discuss your duties. We all pull our weight in these parts, you hear? None of this city philosophy where it’s every man for himself.”

“I understand, ma’am,” Andy said. Carla nodded at her then stalked off toward a building, talking to a few people that were milling about town as dusk settled. “I like her,” Andy said with a grin.

“She’s amazing,” Hamish said in agreement.

“An unreasonable woman at the best of times,” Miranda huffed. “Come along, Andréa,” Miranda said over her shoulder, strutting away as if she was walking through the marble halls of _Runway_. 

“Talk later,” Andy said to Hamish, waving to him as she followed behind Miranda, in no hurry and bearing no desire to cater to Miranda’s desire for control. 

They walked a small distance apart for a few blocks until Miranda stopped at a non-descript two-storey house. It had a white picket fence and white panelling and seriously needed to be repainted. The garden was overgrown too, and as Andy glanced at it, she could see all the potential the place had to be picturesque. 

Miranda, stopping for nothing, walked right up to the door, opened it and entered the house, leaving the door wide open behind her. Andy shut it behind her, immediately noticing a young woman with blonde hair looking at her quizzically from the sitting room adjacent to the entryway. Sat in an armchair reading, Andy deducted that she had to be Dianne, Miranda’s housemate, for lack of a better word.

“Are you… staying?” Dianne asked, eyeing Andy’s backpack.

“Yeah, I… Miranda decided, really. Sorry about that,” Andy said, smiling awkwardly.

“Oh. Well, who would argue with _her_ ,” Dianna said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. I’m at a good bit,” the woman said, turning back to her book.

“Okay, cool. Goodnight,” Andy said, moving deeper into the house and up the stairs where she heard Miranda go.

It was easy to guess which room was Miranda’s in that the door was open and the light was on. There were only two other doors, one was shut and the other was obviously a bathroom. Andy walked closer to the rectangle of light flung in the hallway from Miranda’s room, Miranda’s silhouette casting shadows along the hallway carpet.

“What took you so long?” Miranda asked, taking off her watch and placing it on one of the bedside tables then looking to Andy reproachfully. 

“I met Dianne,” Andy said in explanation, offering nothing more. She watched as Miranda began undressing and wondered if she and Dianne had slept together, too, or if Andy was the only one who Miranda had vaguely used as a booty call. Andy didn’t want the answer, no matter how hard she pondered. “She seems nice.”

“She’s as interesting as watching cement dry,” Miranda returned, slipping into an oversized sleeping jacket.

“Watched much cement dry, have you?”

“Don’t get fresh. Get into bed.”

Andy watched, still stood by the door, as Miranda arranged herself into the queen bed. Andy rolled her eyes when Miranda stilled, seemingly comfortable, and placed her backpack onto the floor, rifling through to get to her own bedclothes. She grabbed some shorts and a sweater that would have to keep her warm. She stood, grabbed her bag and moved to walk out of the room.

“Andréa, where are you going?”

“Couch,” Andy said, shutting the door behind her. 

Her night was miserable, she was disappointed to say. She knew, as soon as her eyes peeled open at the crack of dawn, that she would’ve slept better in Miranda’s bed. But, she reaffirmed as she stretched her legs on the sofa, it was the _principle_ of the thing. Miranda would not just ‘Andréa this’ and ‘Andréa that’ her way through life again. No, sir. 

Andy figured out the kettle and cupboards well enough to make tea for herself. Dianne came downstairs and said a brief goodmorning, rejecting the offer of tea from a dreadful looking Andy. Two cups of chamomile and a slice of bread and Andy felt slightly more ready to deal with her day. Without a word to Miranda, Andy left the house, dressed in clean cargo pants and a tank, her hiking boots thudding dully as she left through the front door. 

“Andy!”

Andy was relieved to see Hamish waving over at her as she had absolutely no idea where anything was in this town.

“What are you doing up so early?” she asked him as they hugged hello.

“We’re on the same shift, Andy. You should know,” he laughed. “You and I are shadowing Caleb. We basically go around the perimeter, check the fence, the animal traps… how are you at crab pots?”

“Never used one before,” Andy admitted. Hamish waved her away.

“Never mind,” he said, “You’ll get good, for sure.”

“So we just, what, cruise around all day?”

“Well, there’s a group of us and the ones who can, walk all over. That’s us,” he added. “But the other half of the group sticks closer by the town.”

“People who can’t walk all over, I guess,” Andy said, making sure to take note of where they were walking so she could find her way back without Hamish. At the end of one of the larger roads and on the street closest to the river was a small house not unlike the rest in the town. With chipped paint and faded roof tiles, the domicile didn’t seem noteworthy save for the group of people stood outside it. 

Equipped with an array of fishing paraphernalia, Andy could only assume they were scouting the river that day. And sure enough, idling at the edge of the murky waters, were several dinghies awaiting their passengers. Andy spied crab pots and fishing nets, so could only assume that the main meat source for the town was seafood.

Andy and Hamish both took their places at the back of the small gathering, talking between themselves and waiting for what, Andy didn’t know. When a broad black man, who Hamish informed was named Shaun, stood on the porch of the small home, Andy finally began learning what her roles for the day would be. 

They were sectioned into three groups: one for setting crab traps, one for setting fish traps, and one for following behind the first two to collect whatever the traps had caught. Andy blinked tiredly and nodded when she was placed with group three, waving away Hamish’s concern at their separation (he was a fluke with a fish trap, apparently). She got into her corresponding dinghy and watched drowsily as the river’s ripples passed her by, listening vaguely to the conversation happening between the other three people on the small boat with her. 

“You’re new,” one of them said, obviously directed at her. Andy turned and nodded at the woman, smiling kindly to set a good first impression.

“I’m Andy,” she said, moving steadily to hold out her hand for a handshake. The woman took it.

“Clarisse,” she said simply, shaking once. “This is Enrique and that’s Sam,” Clarisse said, pointed first to an older man and then another older woman who was steering the boat. 

“Nice to meet y’all,” Andy said with a shy wave. Sam smiled and said nothing but Enrique struck up conversation.

“Where are you from?”

As they cruised up the river, stopping intermittently to collect the fruits of the efforts of the two teams ahead of them, Andy and Enrique continued to talk about their lives before this… apocalypse, for lack of a better word. Andy left out the harder parts of her life, as she suspected Enrique might have as well, not quite caring to remember the reasons she hadn’t liked her life before. She wanted to remember the good, to hope she might live like that again. 

“Grab them like this,” Enrique explained, grabbing a crab to show Andy how to do it. She frowned sceptically as Enrique’s hand dodged the claws of the other, very irritated, crabs and threw the undersized ones back into the river. 

“Wanna try?”

“Sure,” Andy said, reaching in and decisively grabbing the smallest crab she could see, flinging it with a small shriek into the river. “Holy shit,” she breathed, laughing. Enrique laughed with Samantha and Clarisse, who had been the quietest of the three. 

“You did well,” Enrique said. “Maybe I’ll do the rest?”

“Please,” Andy laughed. “I’ll help with the fish?” she asked, looking to Clarisse.

“You can learn first,” she responded. “But I’ll teach you.”

Andy smiled and nodded, turning back to Enrique, but spying Clarisse in her periphery. She was older, and though she didn’t look old, she was certainly mature of face. Her gaze was heavy with what Andy could only describe as experience. Clarisse seemed learned and knowledgeable, and though Andy wasn’t a journalist at that moment, her senses told her that Clarisse would be interesting to get to know. 

“What did you do before all this,” Andy asked her, moving to sit closer in the limited space they had in the small boat. 

“I was here visiting some old friends. I was a social worker,” Clarisse said easily enough. Andy, good at her job as she’d been, managed to coax several stories from the older woman. After several hours of racing up and down the river, the three groups parked the dinghies back at the river bank near the town, hauling their catches for the day. Their work was not quite done. They had yet to anchor the boats properly, and even though it was probably the driest time of year, Shaun was insistent on this point.

Tired from her poor sleep, stiff from sitting in the dinghy for so long, and strained from hauling the boat onto the shore, Andy trudged back to the house she was residing at. She shut the door behind her after making plans with Hamish to meet for lunch, took off her shoes and went to the lounge, laying on it and falling asleep immediately. 

“Andréa,” she heard. She was late with the coffee and the scarves. She had to walk Patricia, too, and make sure Roy picked up the girls and- “Andréa!”

Andy’s eyes snapped open, but before she blinked for several seconds, she saw nothing. But then there Miranda stood, dressed appropriately in black cargo pants and a black turtleneck, staring down at Andy on the couch. She seemed irate, arms crossed, brow furrowed. Andy frowned in confusion. She couldn’t have been asleep for long as the sun was still bright and filtering through the windows.

“What’s wrong?” Andy asked as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. 

“You did not sleep well last night,” Miranda accused, moving nary an inch from her stony position. 

“I was napping,” Andy returned bitterly. She wouldn’t admit that she certainly would’ve slept through her lunch with Hamish had Miranda not woken her. 

“Yes, because you did not sleep well on that hideous couch.”

Andy got up from the couch, walking past Miranda to the armchair where her backpack was.

“I gonna be late if I don’t leave in the next few minutes, so if you’re making a point,” Andy trailed off. She put on some more deodorant and some perfume she’d brought from her home, spritzing twice gently.

“Where are you going? Chores are done for you and I,” Miranda asked. Andy had learned that the town ran on a morning to evening schedule with chores ccurring in either time bracket. Andy and Miranda both happened to have chores in the morning while Dianne had hers in the afternoon. Andy supposed that was why the woman wasn’t present to ward Miranda away. 

“I’m meeting Hamish for lunch, and maybe Clarisse,” Andy said, zipping up her backpack.

“Clarisse? She’s dour as anything,” Miranda berated. Andy rolled her eyes and turned to the other woman with a frown on her face.

“You’ve got comments about everyone in this town, you know. Not a nice thing to say about anyone. Maybe you’re opinion of them is more a reflection of yourself.” Miranda’s eyes widened at her, her mouth parting slightly. “I’m going out. I’ll see you later.”

“Do not,” Miranda said, hand gripping Andy’s arm as she tried to walk past the stunned woman, “Walk away from me, Andréa.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I can choose for myself, remember?”

Miranda stepped into her space, her eyes intense and her mouth pursed. Andy was scared. Of course she was. Miranda was not someone who emanated a sense of forgiveness or mercy, but in this little town with its dinghies and wire fence, and the outside world in some form of ruin, Miranda was just a woman in cargo pants and boots. No designers to remble before her, no assistants to get her coffee. She was just a woman, and Andy would not be disrespected by anyone, least of all someone so high up on their horse. 

“You,” Miranda began but didn’t finish. Andy stared at her, waiting. Miranda didn’t continue speaking, but her hand did move from its grip on her forearm to settle possessively on her waist. Her other hand reached around, slowly enough for Andy to stop her, to grip her ponytail in her fist. But Andy didn’t stop her. She could choose for herself, certainly, but sometimes her choices were not good ones. 

She stifled a groan as Miranda tugged her head back, then gasped when Miranda leaned forward and rested her lips on Andy’s exposed tendon. Miranda didn’t bite or suck. Her mouth simply rested, her breath tickling Andy’s baby hairs and raising goosebumps on her arms. 

“You will sleep in my bed this evening and every one after,” Miranda pronounced gently against Andy’s skin. “Understood?”

Andy didn’t speak for a long moment, thinking about how she had been cornered again by her own design. 

“Fine,” she said finally, moaning when Miranda’s lips opened and latched onto her neck, sucking in reward.

“Good,” the woman said, pulling back and detaching from Andy then talking further into the house and up the stairs. Andy stood alone, furious with herself and Miranda and caressing her tingling neck, knowing that Miranda had left the slightest temporary mark upon her. 

_Asshole,_ she thought, shutting the front door behind her and walking to the lunch hall. 

  
  


“Stop fidgeting,” Miranda snapped from her side of the bed. Andy huffed and rolled over again, kicking the blanket off her legs and flipping her pillow.

“No,” she said. “You wanted me here, now you can suffer the consequences.”

“You’re unbearable,” Miranda sniffed from Andy’s left. Andy rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. She covered her feet again, shifted her shoulders, then kicked off the blanket once more.

“Oh,” Andy said. Miranda had rolled fluidly on top of her, ceasing her movements.

“Do you have energy to burn, Andréa?” Miranda asked as she mouthed at Andy’s jaw. How she could see in the dark, Andy didn’t know, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Miranda had built-in night vision. 

“Um.”

“I think you might,” Miranda continued, moving her mouth to Andy’s ear and rendering her dumb. “I’d be happy to… assist.”

The next morning, Andy pondered how it was possible to have gotten as few hours of sleep as the previous night but feel much more rested. Perhaps there was something to her quality of sleep, after all. She wouldn’t mention that to Miranda, obviously, who still slept on next to her, firmly on her side after they’d had their… fill last night. Andy sighed, rubbed her eyes and rolled quietly out of bed. 

A shower and change of clothes later, and Andy was ready to meet Hamish for their chores that day. She left Miranda sleeping in the bed and made her way out of the house, eyeing the weedy garden and making plans to rectify all of its overgrownness. Andy trudged confidently through the middle of town, past what used to be a post office and now served as a storage building for the fishing crew.

“Andy,” Hamish greeted, nodding with a smile. Andy nodded back, a smile of her own on her face.

“Hamish.”

“You heard what the move is today?”

“No, sir.”

“We can’t be fishing every day because we’d be messing up the river critters, see, so we also have to grow a lot of our food. I think Carla is gonna get us to plant some crops.”

“This close to winter?”

“Turnips, peas and cauli are hardier veggies,” Hamish explained as they walked to where Carla lived. “We’ll need to plant them soon so they can be ready for harvest by the time the stuff we’ve got on hand runs out. And of course there’s still scavenging that we can do.”

“Which reminds me,” Andy said, “I need to talk to Caleb about an earlier scavenge.”

“You need to talk to _me_ about an earlier scavenge,” Carla’s authoritative voice chimed from beside them. The older woman was walking in the direction of her home with a clipboard in hand and a walkie talkie on her hip, blaring with fuzzy correspondence every few seconds.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Andy said. Carla waved her away and looked back to her clipboard.

“It’s not going to happen, Andy,” she said. “I understand that’s not the answer you wanted, but if we started straying from plans and schedules then we’d never get back on them.”

Andy wanted to rage, but the something in the rationality in the woman’s voice halted her lashing out. 

“I’ll have to think of some other options then,” she replied easily. She’d do some thinking after her chores that day, maybe ask Clarisse or even Enrique for some advice. 

Chores were as Hamish had suspected. Andy and about two dozen other people planted until the early afternoon, everything from parsnips to broccoli to potatoes to broad beans. Andy was excited by the process of gardening and farming, had always had an appreciation for planting something and caring for it until it bore fruit (or, in this case, vegetables). It was a cleansing process, one that Andy hadn’t had time to indulge in her life in New York. 

“Silver linings,” she snorted to herself as she walked up and down the rows of tilled earth and watered where she knew there were seeds under the soil. 

When she returned to the house that afternoon, Miranda was waiting for her.

“Where on earth have you been? It’s nearly three,” she said as Andy walked through the door. 

“Working. Planting stuff,” she said, walking straight to the stairs and up to the bathroom, Miranda following her for a moment, then heading instead fro the bedroom. 

Andy showered, exhausted by her work but strangely fulfilled by the work she’d done. They’d be eating well by the time the crops were ready for harvest, she thought, washing her hair. They’d be able to make all sorts of hearty meals in a few month’s time, maybe even sooner. Andy’d have to read up on how different vegetables grow. 

It was only as she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself that she realised she was thinking of an extended future in that small town, in that small house. She dried herself quickly, plaited her hair and dressed then hunted for her phone. There was no signal in the town at all, not even a radio phone, Carla had told her the day she returned to town. It was a helpless situation, Andy understood. She wouldn’t be able to get in touch with her parents unless she walked there, and even then, the communication wouldn’t be as instant as a phone call. 

Shaking away the morose thoughts, Andy continued to search for her phone. When she found it and turned it on to see no new messages and still no signal, she sighed once, deeply, and massaged I forehead in frustration. Hamish had said that no one’s phone seemed to be working after an explosion at a nearby service line at about the same time Andy had to leave New York. She cursed the poor timing of it all, and the situation as a whole. 

“I’m cooking tonight,” Miranda said to her as she entered the bedroom, phone once again turned off in Andy’s hand. “I think we have chicken breast in the freezer,” the older woman added. Andy nodded blankly, frankly uninterested in anything that wasn’t a way to get to her parents. It had been five days since her last contact with them, and she knew that if they weren’t worried for the first few days, then they certainly would have been as the days continued. “Are you listening to me?”

“No, Miranda,” Andy said. “I’m not.”

“I can’t believe I ever thought you had manners,” Miranda scolded, then fell silent. She moved to sit against the headboard and read the book on her nightstand, as Andy had observed her do once before. Miranda seemed both at ease and on edge, waiting for Andy to say something perhaps. But Andy had nothing to say to Miranda just then. Nothing that wouldn’t start another argument. 

She looked at Miranda for another moment, her sharp nose slanted slightly to Andy’s left. Her lips pursed but soft and her eyes always so intense. She was pretty, beautiful even. She was distracting, and Andy needed nothing more than to be distracted in that moment. She moved to put her phone away, took off her watch and placed it on the nightstand, then turned to Miranda and took her book away, marking the page but not looking at it twice.

“What on earth do you think you’re—mmm.”

Andy didn’t have a lot of experience with women, save for one night in college like everybody else, but she knew enough about that particular woman to effectively get her off. And with her mouth, she did just that several times until Miranda was slapping her lightly away, telling her to stop, let her recover. The sun had set, but Andy was not satisfied.

“Fingers?”

“You’re very daring today.”

“Yes or no.”

“Yes.”

Feeling a woman around her fingers was something wholly familiar to Andy. She’d had to make do with her own hand many times in her life, but it was, naturally, different being with someone else that way. The feel, the sounds, the smell, even. It was the first time Andy had been the one in control, the one giving, between them. She liked it better, she thought. 

“No, you have to—yes, like that… a little to the left… yes!”

It was all the more enjoyable when Miranda gave her clear instructions, which had never happened between them in any capacity ever. By the time Miranda was actually done, she was limp and snoozing on the bed. Andy, satisfied in a different way, went to wash her face and brush her teeth and get started on the dinner that Miranda had definitely forgotten about.

“Chicken sounds delicious,” she thought. 

Chicken was delicious, not that Miranda said so. They ate silently, Andy in particular avoiding eye contact from the woman who seems to be different by day and night. She finished her food, grabbed her bowl and Miranda’s, and washed the dishes beside the sink. She put a plate of food together for Dianne, placing a cloth over it and sitting it on the stove so she would see it when she got home. 

“You’re delusional if you think you’re going to be sleeping on that couch again,” Miranda said as Andy dried her hands. The older woman was leant upon the bannister on the stairs, the low lighting of the stove top light illuminating the admittedly lovely features Miranda boasted. Andy, as she glanced at Miranda’s eyes, remembered a time in her childhood where she wished every day to have eyes as blue as Miranda’s. She had learned to appreciate her brown ones, but the resurgence of her old desires made her foolishly bitter once again. 

“You make the alternative so appealing when you speak to me like that,” Andy snarked, placing the teatowel on the oven handle and moving towards her sort-of-lover. “How could I resist?”

Miranda raised a brow but otherwise said nothing. Andy allowed her to lead the way all the way to the bedroom.

“I’m going to shower,” Miranda said. Andy frowned.

“I was about to go,” she said, looking pointedly to the change of clothes in her hands and a towel she’d used the day before. 

“What do you propose we do about this?”

Andy knew immediately that she was being goaded into showering with the other woman, and while that usually wasn’t something that Andy would frown at, she wanted simply to shower in peace.

“You can go first,” Andy conceded. “But hurry, I’m tired.”

“Oh, I bet you are,” Miranda returned breezily, strutting out of the room and to the bathroom down the hall. Andy was glad Miranda wouldn’t see her blush. 

They both slept soundly that night, and by dawn the next day, Andy was refreshed and ready for the labour ahead of her. _Maybe there’s something to good sex and a full night’s rest_ , she thought as she walked out the front door. Hamish was waiting for her at the end of her block, ready to walk the rest of the way to the freshly tilled fields that would be their source of food come high winter. 

“I like it,” Andy responded to Hamish, who asked her how she felt about the field work. “It’s satisfying and strenuous. I always feel like I’ve accomplished a lot when we’re done for the day.”

“I know what you mean,” Hamish said from his kneeling position, dusting off his hands that were caked in dirt. “Picking is harder, though.”

“Well,” Andy laughed, helping him to stand, “I might have to take your word for it.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I have a meeting with Carla soon about an early scavenge.”

“But she already said no,” Hamish reminded her. She nodded.

“Yeah, but she didn’t realise we were low on charcoal. We could make some but we’d run out of it before we could renew it. I’m going to ask if she thinks it’s a good enough reason to head toward Cincinnati.”

“Well, good luck. I think you’ll need it,” Hamish said. “Ow!” he yelled after Andy’d punched his arm. “What was that for?!”

“For doubting me,” Andy smiled. 

Hamish was right to doubt. Carla had heard Andy for about four seconds before she shut down the idea completely. 

“It’s not that I don’t want you to be with your family, honey,” she explained. “But we run a tight ship here because it’s life or death outside these fences. It’s not just you I’d be sending. I’d be sending Caleb or Hamish and a car for a trip we don’t need.”

Andy nodded in understanding even as she felt a kick to her gut. 

“I need to get there somehow,” she said. “I’m not going to ask you or anyone else do go out of the way, but if I can’t catch a ride there, then I need to walk…” 

Carla’s eyes, usually stern, softened in sympathy.

“You take enough food for your walk there. I can’t spare more than that.”

Andy nodded and sighed in relief. “Thank you,” she said. It was as good as a blessing from the older woman, and that was all Andy needed.

She walked home in a warring state of relief and frustration. She felt trapped, but the door to her cage was open, and she free to come and go as she pleased. She’d felt like that after her and Nate met up after Paris. Both free yet weighed down by expectation. She’d given in to it then, her and Nate reaching a tentative agreement with their relationship, but nothing as intimate or full as what it’d been.

She thought about Nate as she walked into the house and up the stairs and in the shower. She remembered stupid things he used to do, things she’d be annoyed by when he’d done them. What she wouldn’t give for him to be alive to annoy her. They hadn’t been in love in the end, but she’d loved him all the same, and knew he loved her too. He wasn’t perfect, nor was he perfect for her. But he’d been alive. He’d been _alive._

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the white noise of her shower, hoping that Nate might hear it wherever he was now. 

Miranda arrived an hour after Andy’s shower, and seemed to pick up on the brunette’s mood. They didn’t speak to each other. Not as they both read their books, nor when they made dinner together, nor when they ate their meal. They went to bed in silence and fell asleep in silence, Miranda’s warm hand on Andy’s forearm as they slept. 

  
  


The next morning, Andy realised it had been six days since she’d been picked up by Caleb and Hamish and Miranda, and a week since she’d messaged her mother. She knew her parents would be in a panic and they did really stupid things when they panicked, she knew from experience. Andy resolved to convincing Carla to an early scavenge with the cars or to let Andy take a few supplies for the four or five day walk she’d take to Cincinnati. 

“Why are you brooding?” Miranda asked with all the subtlety of a train crash. 

“I’m figuring things out in my head,” she replied. 

Miranda rolled over in their bed to face Andy. The light of predawn was just beginning to glow through the windows and over Miranda’s pale skin. She glowed indigo beside Andy, her hair the brightest part of her. Miranda’s eyes even looked purple in the strange light, agitating butterflies in Andy’s stomach as she had a time or two when Andy still worked for Miranda. She seemed alien. She was beautiful. 

“What is there to figure out?”

Andy blinked at her, unsure if she was being facetious or not. 

“Only everything,” she returned. Miranda snorted.

“Where to sit on the boat, what coat to wear as it gets colder,” Mirnanda said whimsically, waving her hand in a gesture that belied how much she didn’t care for whatever occupied Andy’s head. “It will sort itself out in time.”

“I’m talking about my parents,” Andy said blandly. Miranda’s frown made the butterflies in her belly die.

“What about them?”

“I need to get to them still, Miranda. They didn’t just disappear from my life because I’ve been here nearly a week.”

“Andréa,” Miranda began patronisingly. “If the foxglove hasn’t caught hold of most of America then I will be surprised. It is senseless to risk yourself to go to your parents, especially if they’ve evacuated already.”

Andy sat up and reached for her shirt she had discarded at some point in the night, pulling it on and moving to find some pants and begin her day. And to avoid a confrontation she knew she was going to have with Miranda.

“Andréa. _Andréa._ ”

“What?!”

“Adjust your tone,” Miranda said lowly. “You are not seeing reason.”

“Seeing _reason_! Why do I need any reason but that I want to get to my family? What reason do I need other than my own? _Yours_? Is that what you think?”

“I said adjust your tone,” Miranda repeated. Andy buttoned her pants and zipped then turned in a fury to Miranda.

“I’ll adjust my tone when you adjust your attitude,” Andy said. “I don’t think you’re a bad person Miranda, not at all. But I can’t help but despise this goal of yours to keep me from my parents. Especially when time could be running out for them.”

“ _That_ is precisely my point,” Miranda intoned, her hand making sharp gestures in Andy’s direction. “You’re not assessing the risks!”

“If it were Caroline and Cassidy, would you hesitate?”

It was as if Andy had stolen Miranda’s voice and any colour the woman possessed in her skin. Even the now pinkish light from the windows seemed to avoid Miranda’s silhouette.

“That is different,” Miranda said. 

“It’s different because it’s me saying it,” Andy threw at her. “Exactly how you feel hearing it is exactly how I feel.”

“You’re a fool,” Miranda snarled, the fire returning to her eyes and cheeks. The blush was attractive, Andy thought vaguely. “You’ll be lucky if they’re still there. You’ll be lucky to make it there alive at all.”

Andy’s eyes stung with tears and her stomach churned in fear. 

“You know what, Miranda? I’ll take my chances.”

Grabbing her backpack, which remained unpacked from when she arrived, Andy left the bedroom and marched straight to the front door, ignoring Miranda’s calling for her to return. Andy was too good at walking away from Miranda, but she wondered if it wasn’t a skill rather than a flaw, especially as she replayed the vitriol spewed at her a few moments before.

“Andréa!” Miranda called, but Andy had the ability to look at other’s needs and decide for herself. And her mind was made.

“Where you off to?” Hamish asked as he caught up with her. “We’re on river chores today,” he reminded.

“Yeah, I know. I need to talk to Carla, and however that goes, I’m leaving. I gotta get to my folks,” Andy said, not slowing her pace even a little. Hamish was tall and fit, though, so he had no trouble keeping up, even if he was confused by the hurry.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Okay. You need help with anything?”

Andy might’ve kissed him had the circumstances been different. A white-haired, sharp-mouthed circumstance in particular. 

“I might need food for about five days,” she said honestly. “I don’t want you to get in trouble, though.”

“What’s life without a little trouble,” he grinned. “Give me twenty. I’ll see what we have at mine to spare. I’ll meet you at the front gate.”

“Thank you, Hamish.”

“What are friends for?”

What, indeed.

  
_V._  
  


Talking with Carla was more embarrassing than anything. Andy felt like a teenager running away from home and being caught out by a neighbour. Only she was a grown woman, she was running _to_ her home and Carla wasn’t her neighbour. 

“You can go whenever you want,” the older woman said. “But if you come back, you will need to quarantine again, and anyone you bring will be put to work where they can.”

The words gave Andy hope, and seemed to uncomplicate her feelings towards leaving. It was simple, she thought. Walk. Just walk, like she’d done for over a week to get where she was. One foot in front of the other.

“Thank you,” Andy said as genuinely as she was capable, which was quite a bit.

“You’re alright, Andy.”

“You too,” Andy smiled. She turned and walked out of the small repurposed building that served as Carla’s workplace. 

She met with Hamish who was overwhelmed with the amount of food he had. It wasn’t all easily packed into her backpack, but it would certainly get her to Cincinnati without starving. She thanked him, told him that it wasn’t the last time she would see him, and walked out of the gate without looking back. The unease in the pit of her stomach didn’t go away, but Andy knew from her first experience that it was a side-effect of walking away from Miranda. Apparently it wasn’t the sort of thing that got easier a second time around. 

The days were blurred by anxiety and regret and so much walking. The main roads and highways were properly deserted this time, not an infected in sight, much to Andy’s relief. Only the reassuring weight of her pistol eased her paranoia as she slept in her little tent on the cold ground. She slept little, a combination of the cold and the protests her body made to no longer sleeping on a firm mattress with a warm body beside her. She missed Miranda in those moments, and even when the sun was high and she had no need for warmth.

Andy had to double check she was going in the right direction multiple times, but it was as she arrived at the outskirts of her parent’s suburb that her disorientation surprised her most. Her home, the place she’d grown up, looked nothing like it used to. There were cars in the middle of the road, some untouched, others totalled or at the least scraped up. There were houses that had once boasted neat lawns and homely appearances, but now possessed busted windows and broken doors. Andy’ heart had leapt to her throat and stayed there since her third day of walking for these reasons. 

Walking along her street and up to her home was nothing like Andy had imagined it when she left New York. She had pictured walking through bustling streets full of people getting ready to leave their homes. She imagined seeing cars half-packed full of necessary belongings, children running around heedless of their frightened, but managing, parents. She expected to see her home and maybe her father packing their car while her mother decided what was going and staying.

She didn’t see any of that. 

Her street was empty of people, not even infecteds were ambling around. It was a bittersweet realisation, one that Andy wasn’t going to consider, because it meant acknowledging that nothing and no one alive or normal inhabited these streets. Andy’s eyes, blank but alert, looked forward as she walked, her gaze pinned to the second last house on the left of the street and her childhood home. 

Standing in front of the homey structure felt violating to her. To see the outside so normal, so expected, and for it to be empty of life and answers, unveiled a new emotion that rested at the intersection of grief and betrayal. She walked up to the front door, opened it, remembering with fondness and exasperation that her parent’s never locked their front door, and stepped inside. The landline was on the floor, the urgent beeping of the receiver dull but echoing. Andy shut the door, rearranged the phone in its cradle, and moved through her childhood home like a wraith. 

She looked at the mantle and all the photos laid upon it, the cherry wood groaning with the upholding of nearly every important stage of Andy’s life. She ran her fingertips over the wood and walked her fingers along from left to right as she used to when she was a girl. Her Walk of Life, she had called it when her parents asked her why she did it. _Foreshadowing_ , she thought sardonically, feeling the vague ache in her calves and soles.

The kitchen was a mess but Andy didn’t want to contemplate any of the possibilities of why that was. She simply plugged her nose and grabbed what was left of the longlife food in the cupboard. She moved upstairs next, passing the archway where lines of her growing height had been recorded in years gone by. She climbed the stairs, listening for the creak on the second, ninth and eleventh. 

She spent little time in the study, grabbing only a photograph of her and her mother and father when she graduated high school. She checked the bathroom, grabbed the unused packets of toothbrushes and toothpaste and, on a whim, the facemasks in the second drawer. She moved mechanically to the hall, ignoring the spare room which used to be hers, and walking slowly to the door that separated her from her parents’ bedroom. 

Andy approached slowly, her hands sweating and her heart racing. A sense of foreboding filled her from feet to brim as she turned the knob and peeked inside. The room was noiseless save for Andy’s gasp. The air motionless save for the breath that left her in a quick, sharp _whoosh_. Upon the bed, and covered by the comforter, Andy could just make out the dark hair of her father upon his pillow. He did not move, not to breathe or see who had disturbed him.

Quietly, as though not to wake him, Andy stepped backwards out of her father’s room, shutting the door and breathing heavily, wide-eyed and manic. 

“Gotta… I gotta go,” she whispered to the door. “I gotta _go_.”

She leapt down the stairs, through the living room, passing the phone and out the door. She took deep lungfuls of air that only made her dizzy and disoriented. She realised that she had no time to stand there and mourn or cry or anything at all. She had to get walking again. Had to go, go, go. 

It was the next day before she realised she might need to eat something if she were ever going to make it back to Stockport. It was the only place she knew was safe, even if facing everyone there shaped up to be a nightmare in her head. Not even the background thought of Miranda’s reproval was enough to stay her feet from heading south-east again. If anything were to stop her, she thought, eating a tin of peaches, it would be her already dwindling food supply…

It was the middle of day four that Andy saw her mother.

Three figures were meandering without direction ahead of her, two male and one female. It was as Andy was looking for routes around the infecteds to avoid a confrontation that she noticed the dress the woman was wearing. A hideous red and green and yellow print that Andy remembered, vividly, her mother buying with a delighted grin. Andy recalled not having the heart to tell her mother it offended even her terrible fashion senses. And there the dress was, on a wandering infected in Andy’s path.

Whatever Andy did next, whatever word she might’ve uttered under her breath, it was enough to alert the three infecteds that she was there. The two males took off towards her, urging her to quickly pull out her gun and switch off the safety. She took one deep breath, marking the moment as one she would never forget, and shot twice. One bullet to the chest each was enough to disenable the two males, thankfully.

A snarl pulled her attention back to her mother. Her leg was injured, Andy noted, and she hobbled weakly over, her features not quite her own with the mindless rage painted there. Andy didn’t realise she was crying until the image of Adaline Sachs was blurred and warbled. Andy gasped a sob, and held up her hand as if to halt her mother’s approach.

“Momma, please,” Andy cried. 

It did nothing, exactly as she thought it would. But the plea would not stop falling from her mouth, even as she took unsteady steps backwards and away from her still approaching mother. The snarling had grown more frenzied the closer the two figures became. Andy continued to beg, _“please, please, please,”_ as if her words might cure the horrible affliction that had nearly destroyed her country. 

Eventually, her fear and instinct for survival outweighed her hopeless begging. She shot once, her eyes closed, and with the bang of her gun, the snarling stopped along with the shuffling footsteps. Andy didn’t open her eyes. She turned around, knelt on the ground and dry reached, her gun clattering to the bitumen. She crouched there for what felt like hours, the sun beating down on her back, burning through her shirt though the temperature was wintery. 

She stood sometime later, rising unsteadily to her feet and covering her face. It was a unique cruelty that she could not even bury her mother’s body, too contagious was foxglove to allow anything of the sort. Her mother would die of this disease with less dignity than her father, and that thought alone made her rage. A single anguished cry left her mouth, enough to frighten a flock of late migrating birds from the forestry around her. And maybe enough to attract more infecteds. 

Andy pulled herself together at the very real realisation that she might die from her grief. She secured her gun in her trousers, wiped any lingering tears on her face, and set off for Stockport again, resolute that she must return. She shut her mind off for the hours she walked, the hours she shivered in the small tent that made her back twinge. She didn’t think or feel until she knew it was safe to do so, and her flimsy tent that offered little protection in any sense, would never be it. 

As Andy walked down the hill towards the town proper, she wondered if she should feel relief or hope or anything but the echoing numbness lodged between her ribs. She could see and hear people now, people by the perimeter and within, all doing their bit to keep their community safe. Would they _stay_ safe, she wondered, learning all the time that nothing is certain.

“Andy!”

She wasn’t sure who’d said it (maybe Hamish), but suddenly there was a small group at the perimeter of the town, and among the heads working on a tall wooden blockade, silver hair gleamed. 

Carla appeared at the gate, exactly as she had the first time Andy arrived, though now there were familiar faces watching her approach. Hamish was there, and though he must have seen what she looked like, he smiled gently and waved. She smiled, too, though it was uncomfortable. 

“You’re back?” Carla asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Andy affirmed. Carla nodded.

“You know the drill. Three days out in D block. We’ll drop some food for you.” 

Andy nodded, grateful and anxious about the idea of being alone and safe.

“Get back here,” Andy heard Carla yell. She looked up to see Miranda Priestly walking towards her resolutely, her sure steps falling in such a familiar gait that Andy could practically see the couture dripping off her frame. She was too slow to realise Miranda was not going to stop at an appropriate distance, and by the time she’d thought to step backwards, Miranda’s hands were on her waist and arms and shoulders. 

“What have you done?” Andy whispered, wide-eyed at the crazy woman. “You idiot!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Miranda evaded. 

“Miranda, you’re nothing but trouble,” Carla shouted.

“Be sure to leave enough food for two, if you’d be so good, Carla. Andréa and I will take B block.”

Andy looked up to see Carla’s glare at Miranda, and thought in her addled mind, that it was a shade more respectful than reproachful. She remembered her father had glared at her in much the same way when she announced that she would be going to Northwestern for journalism and not Stanford for law. A respect, however begrudging, was interwoven in the shared look between the older women. 

“Go now,” Carla said, turning away and shooing the few lingerers within the boundary.

Miranda said nothing to Andy as she began dragging her in the familiar direction of the isolation farmsteads. Andy was struck by how different that walk was compared to the first one. Miranda had resolutely avoided looking at her or talking to her, avoided walking next to her. Now, she was being dragged by her hand, and though Miranda was still not exactly talking to her, it felt worlds different to before. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Andy said when they entered isolation house B. Miranda walked ahead of her, checked the surface closest to her for dust (the kitchen counter), then moved behind Andy and took her backpack off her. 

“I shouldn’t do many things, but I am a woman of my own will.” 

_Wilful women will rule the world,_ her mother used to say. Andy swallowed her retort in order to stifle the tears. 

“What are you doing?” she asked as Miranda began frisking down her trousers before pulling out her gun.

Andy avoided looking at the gun and tried to think of an excuse for her to hide away in her room from the next three days and tend to herself. 

“Andréa,” Miranda said, her voice unsure. “The safety is off on this.”

Andy stalked away further into the home and to the main bedroom where Miranda had stayed last time, shutting and locking the bathroom door behind her. She was breathing heavily as she turned the faucet on all the way, blinking rapidly as she kicked her shoes off her feet and ripped her trousers off, then her shirt. 

“Andréa? Andréa!”

“Go away,” she cried, her voice straining to move above the volume of the running water. Her lungs weren’t working, her diaphragm jumping between inhaling and exhaling too fast to really do either. Her arms went stiff, one hand gripping the tub and the other braced on the wall. She’d shut her eyes but she was crying, shards of light slipping into her vision. 

“Stop that, now,” Miranda said. “I’m going to grab you, alright?”

Andy could only lean into the other woman as she was collected into sturdy arms. Soft hands moved to her shoulder blades and a gentle voice told her to breathe, to mimic their breathing.

“You’ll pass out if you don’t breathe, Andréa,” the voice said. 

“It h-hurts,” she stuttered, her voice hushed.

“Where,” Miranda said urgently, pulling back to look Andy over. “Were you injured?”

“No,” Andy whined, falling forward back into Miranda’s arms. She felt Miranda sigh.

“Help me get you into the bath,” she said resignedly.

Andy found herself naked before Miranda, unbothered with modesty (or too drained to even consider it) and being gently bathed. The generic scent of vanilla coated her skin in the form of pearlescent bubbles, wiped away and replaced by the washcloth Miranda had in her hand. She’d not asked questions once Andy’s breathing levelled, nor when Andy began crying softly into her palms. Miranda would wash, soothe and hum.

Rinse and repeat.

Andy’s skin was wrinkled when she stepped out of the tub and into a large towel Miranda held out for her. Dark eyes were red and trauma fresh in her mind’s eye, but Miranda, an unexpected samaritan, was kind. She was gentle and firm, guiding Andy to move her limbs so Miranda could dry her, and Andy, out of it with grief, felt her loyalty to Miranda throb in her chest like another heart. It beat steadily, especially as Miranda lay her down in bed, crawling in and wrapping Andy in her arms again.

“I was worried,” Miranda said casually.

Andy, head rested on Miranda’s sternum, frowned.

“About what?”

“You.”

“Oh.”

Miranda hands stroked her hair and back. It felt like a nervous tick more than any instinct to soothe. Though, Andy thought, it could certainly be both. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you again. Not for a long time, if ever.”

The anxiety in Miranda’s voice made Andy’s eyes sting again. She hadn’t realised that she might have become… a comfort to Miranda. She’d certainly not realised that Miranda had become a comfort to her. Not before that day, at least. But they had been familiar all the time since Andy had arrived to town the few weeks before. They had drifted closer out of necessity, and stayed out of the consolation each symbolised. How hopeful.

“You were right,” Andy said blandly. “My father was dead in his bed and I killed my mother.”

Miranda’s grip tightened and her hand stopped stroking.

“You must know that I didn’t want to be right. You must know that, please. I didn’t want you to go.”

“I won’t anymore. I won’t go.”

Miranda rolled them so they were face to face for a moment.

“I will protect you,” she said solemnly. Andy believed her. 

“I’ll protect you, too.”

A simple kiss to her mouth and Miranda pulled Andy’s head into her chest and wrapped around her. 

Safe at last. 

  
  


_EPILOGUE_

Imogen MacMahon had loved the country-side drives her mother would take her on as a girl. The rolling hills, the trees, the farms… Imogen had loved it. 

Flying over those views was much more enjoyable. 

“Package 57-FFV, ready for fall out,” her headset buzzed.

“Copy, ready for fall out.”

The main cargo door groaned open, the plane’s jaw dropping and bellowing from the great gusts of wind. Imogen had her headset securely over her ears, her safety glasses on and her glutes activated. She and her colleague heaved the large crate along the railed floor and then out the open maw of the plane. Imogen waited for a moment, watched the chute release and then as the crate floated lazily down to a riverside town. 

“Radio says package was delivered undamaged,” her headset mumbled fuzzily.

“Two more stops, then base,” Imogen said.

America was lucky that the rest of the world stepped in to assist with a vaccine and with the uncountable infrastructural damages they’d been victim of. But only two years after foxglove flu had broken and a vaccine had been developed and distributed. Imogen was hopeful that maybe their nation could start picking up the pieces again. 

“I’ll be glad to get home,” George, her freight partner, said. Imogen nodded, her green eyes looking to the people below in the little town.

“We all will, George,” she said, smiling. “We all will.”

_Hope is the thing with feathers,_

_That perches in the soul,_

_And sings the tune without the words ,_

_And never stops at all._  
  


_\- Emily Dickenson, Hope is the Thing with Feathers._


End file.
